The excitement was just as great in town. Pete honked the horn, and soon a dozen cars fell in behind with horns blasting. The procession went slowly up Main Street. Smiling people came out onto the sidewalks and waved.
At her house, Kathleen left Johnny long enough to go into her room and put on old familiar slacks and a flannel shirt. She tossed the green gown and,j3eignoir and the other robe she had worn over it in the corner.
Teddy had not purchased a coat. He had not intended for her ever to leave the room.
It was dark by the time people stopped coming by. Marie, preparing to leave, hugged Kathleen.
“Daddy and I decided we’ll have Christmas next Sunday. Will you come?”
Kathleen looked at Johnny. He smiled and nodded.
“We’ll be there.”
Marie, blinking back tears, and with Bobby Harper beside her, escaped out the door Barker held open for her. Kathleen went to him and put her arms around him. He patted her on the shoulder.
“I’m so glad I’m a member of the Barker Fleming family. Tell that little boy who found my coat that I’m going to buy him the best sheepskin coat I can find.”
“I’m glad you’re home, daughter.”
Johnny stepped forward and held out his hand. “Thanks, Barker. I never knew what having a family was like…till now.”
“You are part of us, Johnny.”
His face showed no emotion, but Kathleen was aware of the turmoil churning inside this wonderful, kind man who was Johnny’s father.
When all who remained were Pete, Tom, and Hod, Pete rose and put on his coat.
“I’m taking Tom and Hod over to Jude’s to spend the night. We were thinking it might be a little crowded here.”
“That’s the best thought you’ve had in a month of Sundays.” Johnny handed him his hat, and they all laughed.
“You’ll be back in the morning?” Kathleen asked her uncles.
“I’m going back to Red Rock on the noon bus. Hod is staying on a while, then coming over to my house before he goes back to Kansas. I want him to see my boys and my pretty little girl.”
“I have to see them before they sprout wings and fly away,” Hod said. “He’s done nothin’ but brag about them for the past hour.”
“You’re staying awhile, Uncle Hod?”
“For a while. Kidnapping is a Federal offense. I’ll stay until the case is assigned. The sheriff feels that he may be in over his head here.”
“Come on, Mr. U.S. Marshal,” Tom said. “Let’s get out of here and leave these two alone. Are you so darned old you can’t remember when you wanted to be alone with Molly?”
“Remember? I still want to be alone with her.” Hod hit Tom with his hat. “What about you and Henry Ann?”
“She was gone four days when Isabel died. That’s the last of that monkey business. My wife sleeps in my bed every night from now on.”
“Then you understand how I feel.” Johnny opened the door and waved them out. “Good night, gentlemen. I’ll thank you tomorrow.”
Pete had a parting shot as he went out the door. “We’ll be back about midnight with a shivaree.”
“You do and you’ll get a load of buckshot in the rear.” Johnny closed the door and opened his arms. “Come here to me, Mrs. Henry. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to make up for five years of lost time.”
When he kissed her, she returned his kisses fervently. She was afraid that after she told him about the baby, this wonderful loving man would feel that she had betrayed him.
“I’ve something to tell you.” She closed her eyes and buried her face against his collarbone.
“I have a lot of things to tell you. Let’s go to bed so I can hold you while I tell you how much I love you.” He brushed her hair back from her face and looked into it earnestly. “Honey, this has been the worst week of my life. Worse than the week in the New Georgia Islands when eight thousand Japs were less than a mile away, bombing us at all hours of the day and night.”
“I’ve always loved you. I want you to know that.”
“I do. And I was a fool to put distance between us.” He reached behind him and turned off the light.
In the bedroom, Johnny turned back the covers, took off his clothes, and got into bed. Kathleen came from the bathroom, leaving the light on and the door ajar.
“Do you mind if I leave the light on?”
“Leave it on, sweetheart. Just come here.” He folded back the covers and held out his arms.
She slipped in beside him, closed her eyes when his arms went around her, and pressed her full length against him. God, she prayed. Please don’t let him turn from me when I tell him.
“Oh, Lord! You feel so good.” He sighed. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve got to tell you—”
“Let me tell you.” Johnny kissed her, then whispered, “I went to see Jude, and he told me that about next August we were going to have a baby.”
Kathleen went still and waited.
“Is that what you were going to tell me?”
“Yes, but I was afraid—”
“He explained what had happened to Mary Rose. One baby out of several thousand is born like that. It wasn’t my fault or yours. I was an ignorant, prideful fool who was too stiff-necked to go to someone who could explain it to me. Jude thinks that I’m a damn fool and don’t deserve you. I knew that even before I thought I’d lost you.”
“You want the baby?”
“I want the baby, sweetheart. I want all the babies you want to give me. Don’t cry, honey. I love you so much. I didn’t know how I was going to get through the rest of my life without you.”
She kissed his neck, his chin, his rough cheeks until he desperately sought her lips with his. The kiss lasted a long time and was full of sweetness.
She whispered that she loved him and she had been afraid he would think she had tricked him that morning.
“I was so hungry for you that a team of mules couldn’t have stopped me from making love to you.”
“I bought you a Christmas present.”
“Yeah. What?”
“I’ll give it to you Sunday when we go to Barker’s.”
“I was there Christmas. When you didn’t show up for dinner, Barker and I went looking for you. He pulled every string he could trying to find you. Somehow I’ve got to make things up to him, too.”
“He’s been a good friend to me, Johnny. I think a lot of him and all the Flemings.”
“I guess I’ve been jealous of all he could give you that I couldn’t.”
“I just wanted you, Johnny. From the first, it was you, only you.”
“The first Christmas I was overseas, I made some things for you, but I was afraid to send them.”
“I wish you had. I was so lonesome for you.”
“You won’t be lonesome anymore. Kiss me again and tell me you love me.”
He pressed her hand to his chest. She could feel the powerful beating of his heart. Her fingers stroked the short hair curling from his brown skin. Leaning over him, her lips drifted down his chest, the taste of his warm, moist skin on her tongue. His body quivered, and she became aware of the movement against her thigh.
“You’d better stop, or I’ll not be able to,” he whispered.
“I don’t want to stop.”
“You’ve been through a lot today.”
“But I’m here now …with you. You’ll never get away from me again. I’ll nag you, chase you, hang on to you.” She nipped his chin.
“I want you. I’m about to burst wanting you.”
“I know,” she said happily. “I can feel it.”
“Maybe you should rest for this little cowboy’s sake.” His big hand covered her belly.
“He won’t care. He’s in there snug as a bug.” She slipped her arms around his neck. “I want you to love me.”
His lips crushed hers hungrily. “Then I’ll love you— that is, if you think he won’t mind.” He punctuated his words with soft, but fi
rm kisses.
Epilogue
AUGUST 23, 1946
MOTHER AND CHILD FINE
FATHER A NERVOUS WRECK
Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Henry are the proud parents of a dark-haired seven-pound boy who was promptly named John Barker Henry. Dr. Jude Perry, assisted by his wife, Nurse Theresa Perry, was forced to eject the father from the delivery room for causing a commotion.
The story ran in a black box on the front page of the Rawlings Gazette. Paul and Adelaide jokingly considered putting an extra out on the street.
The morning after the birth, a spotted pony was tied up in front of the clinic with a gift tag that read: To little Johnny from Uncle Pete and Aunt Dale. Johnny swore to get even when at noon, he had to leave Kathleen and the baby, carry a bucket of water to the pony, and clean up a pile of manure.
It had been a year like no other.
For months Kathleen’s kidnapping and what occurred afterward had been the talk of the town, county, and state. Much had been learned about Theodore Nuding. To sum it up, he was wealthy, very intelligent, cunning, and insane.
When the autopsy was performed on his body investigators found no evidence that he was ill. The doctors theorized that he believed so strongly that a curse had been passed down to him from his mother that when he started having severe migraine headaches, he was convinced that he was about to die. It was the poison that had killed him, as it had Harry Cole.
His attorney came forward to claim the body, and Nuding was buried in a corner of the Rawlings cemetery with only the attorney present.
The only explanation of Theodore Nuding’s obsession with Kathleen seemed to stem from the fact that her name was Kathleen and her hair was red. Pictures of his mother, whose name was also Kathleen, had shown that she, too, had red hair. According to his journals, for more than twenty years he had kept his mother in a room similar to the one he had prepared for Kathleen.
The story of Theodore Nuding was so amazing that the University of Oklahoma Medical School asked permission from his estate to study his journals.
A few days after the burial, Kathleen and Johnny received the startling news that Kathleen was the sole heir to the Nuding estate, which included the stock in Hiden-dall corporation, property in Oklahoma City, the Clifton ranch, thousands in savings bonds, and almost a hundred thousand dollars in cash in a lockbox at the bank in Oklahoma City.
The will had been signed and dated a month before the war ended and while Kathleen was working at the aircraft plant. It was unclear why Theodore was working there. He was financially secure and was not in danger of being drafted into service. He was registered as 4-F, because he had a major heart murmur.
The first words out of Kathleen’s mouth when told of the inheritance were, “I don’t want it.”
“There is a provision made for that,” the lawyer said. “If you should refuse to accept the inheritance, the entire estate will go to Iva Togori.”
“Let her have it.”
“Iva Togori is the woman known as Tokyo Rose. Mr. Nuding believed you to be a patriot who would not want a traitor who had broadcast propaganda to our men in the Pacific Theater to take .money back to the Japanese who had killed so many of our men.”
“What shall I do, Johnny?”
“The decision is yours, honey.”
“I don’t want her to have it.”
“Mr. Nuding was counting on that,” the lawyer said. “Do you have a lawyer in the city?”
“Johnny, would Mr. Gifford be our lawyer? You’ve known him for a long time.”
“Grant Gifford?” the lawyer asked. “I know him well. He’s out of public office now. If you wish, I’ll work with him on this.”
Grant Gifford took over as financial advisor and manager of the estate. At first, Kathleen feared Johnny would be stiff-necked about the inheritance. She immediately had it transferred to both names, meaning that his signature was required on all documents.
As soon as the money was available, a large portion of it was given to the clinic so that a wing could be built and a surgeon added to the staff.
The Rawlings library was enlarged to include a children’s section, and funds to support a reading program and extended evening hours were provided.
A sum was set aside for Emily Ramsey’s college education. She was the little girl whose mother was killed by Marty Conroy.
The Henry/Fleming scholarship fund for children of the Cherokee Nation who wanted to continue their education after high school was established, with Barker Fleming and Jacob Runs Fast as the trustees?
Johnny and Kathleen decided together that they would keep the Clifton ranch, but they would never live in the ranch house.
In the spring a full page ad was placed in the Gazette announcing that the Clifton house was being demolished. Anyone who in any way had helped search for Kathleen Henry when she was kidnapped and taken there was welcome to come and take whatever they wanted: windows, doors, stair railings, flooring, plumbing and electric fixtures, or lumber.
After two days, there was hardly enough left to make a good-sized bonfire.
Kathleen gave the wardrobe full of clothes to the church for their bazaar. Johnny suggested that she keep the emeralds and put them in a lockbox at the bank.
“They will be your security, honey, if we should have another Great Depression. The man owes you that for what he put you through.”
In July the first Henry/Perry rodeo was held at the Rawlings fairgrounds. Willie and the Chicken Pluckers put on a warm-up show and were such a success that Pete booked them for rodeos in Ardmore, Duncan, and Elk City.
In August the remodeling was completed on the Circle H ranch house in time for Johnny to bring his wife and son home.
CHRISTMAS, 1946
The old Nash, sporting new tires and a fresh paint job, stopped in front of the Fleming ranch house. The Henrys were reluctant to give up the old car even though a new Dodge sat in the garage at home.
Johnny, carrying his son, followed Kathleen with a basket of gifts, to the door. Barker opened it immediately.
“Merry Christmas,” sang the chorus behind him.
“Merry Christmas to you,” came the cheerful reply.
“John Barker, go to grandpa while I take off my coat,” Johnny said after he had stepped inside the door.
Barker took the child to the rocking chair beside the fireplace.
“You’ll never guess what Daddy got John Barker for Christmas,” Janna said from behind her hand.
“Don’t tell me it’s a tomahawk.” Johnny, now totally at ease at the Flemings’, liked to tease his youngest sister.
“How did you know?” Janna retorted, and flounced away.
“Surely not!” Kathleen grabbed Johnny’s hand and held on to it tightly.
“If his grandpa gave him a tomahawk, we’ll hang it on the wall until he’s old enough to use it.”
“Johnny!“
He pulled her to him. “Lord, honey. No one could have made me believe last Christmas that I could be so happy this Christmas.”
“You always have been too stubborn for your own good, Johnny Henry, but I love you…mightily!“
“But not as much as I love you, Kathleen Henry.”
“All right, you two, stop necking.” Marie was sitting with Bobby on the couch. “This year we’re going to open the presents on Christmas Day. Last year we didn’t open them until New Year’s Day.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Let’s do it this year.” Johnny held Kathleen close to him.
“It’s a rotten idea,” Lucas snorted.
“What do you know about it? You’re just a skinny, ugly kid.” Johnny roughed Lucas’s hair.
“Soon I’ll be big enough to whop your…ass—er…hind.” Lucas darted a quick glance at his father.
“All right, boys.” Barker held John Barker firmly against his shoulder and gently patted his back. “Settle down or I’ll have to get up and whop both your hinds.”
“We’d better watch it, Lucas,” J
ohnny said in a loud whisper. “The chief is about to go on the warpath.”
The girls giggled.
Lucas snickered.
Johnny laughed.
Kathleen stood back and watched the horseplay between her husband and his young brother and could almost thank Theodore Nuding for the despicable act that had brought them all together as a family.
PETE PERRY’S CORN BREAD
½ cup flour
2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1 small can cream-style corn
½ cup milk Mix and Beat Vigorously
Add:
½ cup finely chopped green onions
¼ cup chopped bell pepper or green chilies
In a 9 x 13-inch cake pan, or 12-inch heavy iron skillet (preferred) melt a large tablespoon of lard Crisco, or meat drippings in a 375° oven. Pour melted grease into the cornmeal batter, mix well Bake in the skillet or pan, until golden brown 35 to 45 minutes.
Dear Reader Friends,
This is the last book of the Dolan and Henry family stories. I hope that my characters have given you a glimpse of life as it was in the 1930s and at the end of World War II when the brave men and women who fought for our country came home to their loved ones.
I am sorry to be leaving the Dolans, the Henrys, and their friends. I have grown close to all of them, as I hope you have. When the time is right, and if they wish to do so, they may appear in future books.
Now I am starting a new venture into life with the Jones family, citizens of Fertile, Missouri, in the year 1922. World War I has ended and, thankfully, the flu epidemic. Though they cannot know it, they are about to be caught up in a decade of amazing changes as, even in towns as small as theirs, people are waking up to a daring new day.
As always I appreciate your letters, calls, and e-mails and take note of your suggestions. For those of you who have asked for them, all of my Warner Books are kept in print and may be ordered through your local bookstore.
Until next time,
A new upcoming novel
After the Parade Page 33